“If you meet at a temple instead of a club… your attitude towards the opposite sex will be different.”
Monk Myojang (CEO of the Social Welfare Foundation of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism), whom we met at Naksansa Temple in Yangyang, Gangwon Province on the 10th, answered the question of why he arranges blind dates between men and women at the temple (‘I am a solo’) like this. ‘I am a solo’ is a foundation program that arranges meetings between young men and women in their 20s and 30s. It borrowed the name from the TV program ‘I am a solo’ which is about meetings between unmarried men and women. Since its first season in November of last year, it has gradually gained popularity, and in the season 5 held at Naksansa Temple on the 9th and 10th, 1,501 people applied for 20 positions, showing a competition rate of 70.1 to 1 for men and 77.3 to 1 for women.
‘I am a self’ is the original ‘Meeting Temple Stay’ that the foundation has been doing since 2013. Monk Myojang said, “At that time, we added meeting between the opposite sex based on temple stay, but since we focused more on temple stay than meeting, there weren’t many applicants.” It is said that in the beginning, there were not enough participants, so employees also participated.
The Mannam Templestay, which was barely hanging on, underwent a complete transformation in August of last year when Monk Myojang took office as the CEO. This was because while serving as the executive director of the foundation, I had many regrets while watching over the Mannam Templestay.
Monk Myojang said, “It was a really good program, but there were many aspects that were not properly utilized because they were bound by old customs and ideas.” He added, “The program was temporarily suspended during the COVID-19 period, but when we restarted it last year, we tried to completely overhaul it, and I think that fit the needs of young people.”
First, the program concept was completely changed from temple stay-centered to blind date-centered. “When I saw the meeting temple stay, the female participants came wearing full makeup, suits, and high heels. If they changed into temple stay clothes right away, would the opposite sex be attracted to them? Now, we give them time to look at each other in their new clothes for the first 3 hours or so. They didn’t come for a temple stay, they came for a blind date, right? Hahaha.”
The bedtime (9 p.m.), which was set to match the temple schedule, was also pushed back to 11:30 p.m. Monk Myojang said, “Isn’t it too harsh to ask the hot-blooded young people who came all the way to the temple to go to bed at 9 p.m.?” and “The location also has a big impact, so we held the program at Jogyesa Temple in Jongno-gu, Seoul for Seasons 1 and 2, but we are gradually holding it at temples in the provinces according to the season.” For this reason, we held the program at Jeondeungsa Temple in Ganghwa-gun, Incheon, which was in full bloom with flowers, and Magoksa Temple in Gongju-si, Chungcheongnam-do, in April and June of this year. The reason we held it at Naksansa Temple this time was to add the appeal of summer, vacation, and the ocean.
‘I am a self-made man’, which is so popular that foreign media outlets are reporting on it, is asking for the consent of the participants to reveal their faces. It seems like they would be reluctant to participate because of this, but surprisingly, many people prefer it. Monk Myojang said, “It’s something we didn’t think about, but since we have become a society where people don’t trust each other, the participants actually saw it as a step of verification and a positive thing.” He thinks that if they know that their faces will be revealed, people who want to hide their past bad deeds will probably not participate.
He said that the fact that the meeting place was a temple also added to the mutual attraction. “I think the temple, Buddhism, and faith give us much more trust in each other than meeting at a club or a hunting bar. It shows us the sincerity of meeting people seriously, not just for fun. Maybe the world has become so frivolous that there were no opportunities, but I think young people these days have always wanted serious meetings.”
In this Naksansa Temple ‘I am a Buddhist’, 6 couples were born out of 20 people. But how did they get through the competition rate of over 70 to 1? Monk Myojang said, “We select candidates based on how sincerely they write about their desire to meet the opposite sex,” and “There is no section for religion on the application form, and we do not look at appearance or occupation.”
The ‘I am on my own’ program received a presidential award at the 13th Population Day event last month for its contribution to improving public awareness of the low birth rate issue.
“It will take a very long time to solve the low birth rate problem. We need policies to encourage people to have children right away, but in the long run, we will need to change our thoughts about the opposite sex, about meeting men and women, and about marriage. In that sense, I think it is meaningful for religious organizations to arrange healthy meetings between the opposite sex.”
Monk Myojang said, “Maybe because ‘I am a Jeollo’ has become popular, these days, I’ve been getting a lot of phone calls from people in their 40s and 50s, and even from the ‘singles’ side, asking for programs to be made for them,” and added, “We are seriously considering it for people in their 40s, although not as many as the ‘singles’.”
Yangyang = Reporter Lee Jin-gu [email protected]
2024-08-15 21:02:21